Noname Responds to J. Cole With New Track "Song 33"

Noname returns with "Song 33," a Madlib-produced track that addresses the current state of the country as well as the controversy involving J. Cole.

"But n**as act quiet as a church mouse/In the studio when duty calls to get the verse ..." she raps. "It's time to go to work, wow, look at him go/He really 'bout to write about me when the world is in smokes/There's people in trees when George was beggin' for his mother/ Saying he couldn't breathe, you thought to write about me?"

Cole received backlash earlier this week after releasing "Snow on tha Bluff," which included several lines that many believed were critical of Noname: "She mad at my n****s, she mad at our ignorance, she wear her heart on her sleeve," Cole raps. "She mad at the celebrities — lowkey, I be thinkin’ she talkin’ ’bout me ... Just ’cause you woke and I’m not, that shit ain’t no reason to talk like you better than me."

Fans speculated Cole was responding to Noname's previous tweet in which she criticized hip-hop stars who didn't speak out against George Floyd's police killing: "Poor black folks all over the country are putting their bodies on the line in protest for our collective safety and y’all favorite top selling rappers not even willing to put a tweet up," Noname wrote in a since-deleted tweet. "N***as whole discographies be about black plight and they no where to be found."

Cole didn't refute the speculation that lines were directed at Noname; however, he did share a number of tweets expressing his respect for the Chicago rapper.